


A futile rebellion against your own cosmic helotry

by Grand_Funk



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: 20-something Dirk is a mess but is trying his hardest, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Blackwing, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-28 16:18:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13907736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grand_Funk/pseuds/Grand_Funk
Summary: "Dirk has his vague and vast connection with the inter-workings of The Universe, sure. He has an insight that very few people ever would have the chance to experience, definitely. And yet, everyone else seems to have some universally understood inter-workings of one another's communicative duties and as Dirk finds himself face to face with a gut-churningly handsome man, he wishes, not for the first time, that he could trade."-or-24 year old Dirk fights tooth and nail to neither do what he’s meant to do nor be where he’s meant to be, holistics be damned. He’s met with an expanding collection of disasters and a quite unfortunately lovely man who makes him re-think the whole “I don’t do what The Universe wants anymore” thing.





	1. Chapter 1

When Svlad Cjelli would set his mind to something, he'd set it quite like Great Value crazy glue, solidly… mostly solidly, pretty sort of solidly. At 13:47 in the heart, the very life blood of New York City, that is to say within the subway tunnels beneath Grand Central station, Svlad Cjelli finds his mind set on two things: The first being that from this day forth he would actually enforce people's usage of the name Dirk Gently; if they wished to refer to him as Svlad he simply wouldn't respond, respectability be damned. The second is that he is done listening to The Universe, at least for the day, it can be damned too. And with the nihilistically defiant vigor that so many in their mid-twenties find themselves full of, Dirk Gently steps onto the downtown 6 train. See what The Universe thinks about that. 

The Universe seemed to have a great many thoughts about that, which is why at 17:14 Dirk finds himself only four stops further than where he started. He stays put, legs rattling away, tucked into the corner seat he'd somehow managed to find. He couldn't shake the feeling that The Universe had been mocking him with that one: Here, have a seat, you won't want to be standing if you're planning on waiting this out. 

But wait this out he will; he’d already decided it. So, he sits and rattles and lists. Dirk lists all of the New York City monuments he could call to mind—things like that one exit in that one park in the in the bottom rightish part of the city where you just end up having re-entered unless you're particularly vigilant, and The Museum of Sex that in all of its unabashedness was quite an inspiration. He lists his least favorite colors in order and ranks the finest pizza establishments he'd encountered thus far. And by god, were there some fine establishments. Bagels as well. He misses London, certainly—New York’s particular brand of stench and misery is exhausting—but he worries that he'll miss bagels just as much when he returns. The bread-goods status of this city is really quite incredible; if nothing else it will probably make the whole trip worth while.

It seems that the power of a long bagel rumination is mightier than that of wayward adrenaline, Dirk notes when he realizes he'd stopped rattling. But peace is a short-lived thing and an announcement crackles to life over the car’s PA. The train had run into the amorphous and terrifyingly vague concept of “trouble”. 

Dirk's stomach sinks and chews with the word; with the very real potential of something horrific having happened. Project Icarus, courting death and disaster where ever he goes. No, he’s going to hold firm. His nerves are nothing more than an overreaction to some imagined threat. He will not get off the train. 

Anxiety roils in him. Had something truly terrible happened, an ill-begotten trip and unceremonious fall, it would be nobody's fault but his and his stubbornness. Against his will and best judgment, he thinks of a life cut short. _What if something’s happened to a child?_ Dirk vaguely registers that he's begun rattling again; finger pads playing the pianos of his palms and both legs tapping frantically to their own rhythms. Now that he's thought it, it's out there. _What if that's what comes next?_ Being unable to remove himself from his thoughts, he finally does remove himself from the train. Moments later the train, coincidentally, finds its troubles resolved and removes itself from the station.

Dirk sighs. He can't go down that easily, not if he’s going to prove to himself that he has any agency. Not if he's to show himself and The Universe alike, and he looks begrudgingly to the space around him for emphasis, that he is a _person_ and not a _pawn_. The fact is that the train had been a ruse; No one had actually been hurt. He takes all of five steps and sits down one of the subway’s benches. 

He can feel what he's supposed to do. No, no no. It's not what he's _supposed_ to do, it's what he's wanted to do by a questionably conscious external force. He's not going to keep conflating the two.

Still, he can feel the push and pull of it all. It nips at his limbs like some reversal of executive dysfunction. _Executive hyper-function perhaps?_ He runs his hands through his hair and cradles his head. Sure, he may not be able to convince his body to move when it means doing something like cooking (just fine, delivery exists and is better than anything he would make for himself anyway) or standing (overrated), but when The Universe needs something it's suddenly like pulling teeth— _or the opposite rather, maybe it's more like one of those dreams where your teeth just fall out willy nilly,_ he thinks—to keep his body from just hauling off to where it's needed…

Dirk sits on that bench of the downtown 6, twenty-odd blocks and three and a half hours from where he'd started, and stews, and waits. He'll take ten trains if that's what he has to do to end up anywhere but where he's supposed to be.

He releases his head with the thought, and as he looks up he sees someone trip. They hook their foot over their heel and fall in that slow motion dance of not quite being resigned to their fate but also seeing no way out of it. Dirk thinks it rather poetic and reflexive to his own situation. That is until the inevitable climax of the of the fall which lands the contents of a thirty two ounce cup, if you could really call something which holds thirty two ounces just a cup, unceremoniously across his person. The sweet slightly sticky lime-ness of it makes Dirk think it must have been sprite. Look at that, good detective work in even the grimmest of circumstances.

Well, _Cand esti la Roma poarta-te ca romanii_. Dirk is in New York and in a subway tunnel no less where the only manners to be found were from musicians, the homeless thanking people for their petty cash and kindnesses, and the automated voice asking you to mind the gap and allow the passengers who are trying to leave, to actually leave. 

So, Dirk decides to hell with it. Well, less decides, and more recoils.

"What the fuck?" Rips with a sort of frenzied distress from Dirk’s very core; a place located somewhere beneath the middle of his newly sprite drenched shirt. "Sorry"s pour from the stranger as they regather themself and Dirk, more shocked than appalled, waves them off.

How could he actually bring himself to berate someone who had, clearly, just been a convenient play by The Universe to get Dirk moving? He ends up muttering to himself in Romanian, cantankerously preaching to his audience of one about having inadvertently saved that person from the vast and varied horrors that that trough of soda surely would have brought with it. Dirk begrudgingly peels himself from the bench and skulks through the exit gate. Universe one, Dirk zero. He didn’t expect that he’d finally have to leave on account of being drenched, sticky, and faintly sweet smelling. That was an underhanded and foul tactic.

Dirk tries to hollow his body away from his clothes as he heads up the stairs. He doesn’t succeed. When he finally looks up he's met with that distinct sense of being lost that accompanies emerging from underground onto an unfamiliar corner: It seems the entire world had upended leaving him with neither hope nor prayer to find his way through this new and uncharitable land.

_Damn._ Dirk thinks. That puts him in an incredibly compromised position. If he doesn't know where he is, then there's no way of him knowing where he's definitely not supposed to go. Whichever way he chooses will inevitably be the right way. Dirk presses himself to the railing at the subway's entrance. He glances left. He looks far down the street to the left. He glances right for a moment only to look left again. He really stares the bustling avenue down, and then turns right.

He regrets the choice immediately. Right is such an awful direction. One only to be taken in absolute desperation. His stomach flips and churns in that neon sign way that lets him know, "Hey you’ve messed up!"

So he turns right again. 

Dirk heads across the nearest street in it’s imposing gloom, stark in contrast to the bright and living avenues that bookend it. A breeze cuts between the high columns ofconcrete and steel and dances around hollow bars of scaffolding. Dirk feels thankful that it isn't too hot of a day or the sprite he’s wearing would be even more unbearable. He pulls the damp hem of his shirt and thinks, _there must be a clothing store or shops around here somewhere_. The wide sunlit welcome of 5th avenue invites Dirk forward and immediately into the dense dark un-welcome of— _Oh God._

In what Dirk could only think of as a multi-colored herd, dozens of clip board holders blockade the sidewalk. Each individual foraging for different signatures to draw attention to their wonderfully intentioned causes. They bob and amble like a parade of the most well meaning, longest of fuse, and kindest hearted bovine.

_God, there are so many._ Dirk feels his heart tense as he presses himself tight to the wall of the building beside him; maybe he could blend in with it and make it around them… He's existentially worn enough to be attempting to defy The Universe, he can't handle this too.

As he shimmies down the buildings length, two from different groups spot him. They approach him at once. Dirk thinks he understands the fear that those poor souls plowed down in The Running of the Bulls feel in the moments before they meet their fate. _Fine! Fine fine fine! I'll go back!_ Every fibre of his body yells. Left it is.

The wash of rightness almost bowls Dirk over as he turns back on himself. The feeling of moving with the current of The Universe, the relief of being on the right path. Not knowing what it is, sure, but knowing that it's right.

“No. No.” Dirk says to himself. “I’m not doing that.” And stops. He’s back at the subway entrance.

There are three ways he could go, he's in wet clothes, and he has to make a choice... Or maybe he doesn't. He's supposed to go to a store. Get something. Probably new clothes… That would make sense. 

"Fine, you want to play it that way?" Dirk says a little too loudly to the empty air. Much to his surprise, no one takes notice. He drifts a bit in the 'right' direction and then ducks into a shop.

He looks around, it's musty and dank in that way that shops filled with old and abandoned things are. He scans through its short, slight isles, made of wracks packed with every possibly genre of clothing imaginable. Dirk makes a point of being seen by the woman behind the counter and the one other person that he thinks may be working there. He walks, and pointedly picks up something gaudy, an outer layer of sorts. It’s hideous; A truly heinous insult to entire textile industry. Dirk loves it instantly. The subway might not have worked, but this should definitely hinder him. And, throwing the Monstrosity lavishly over his shoulder, Dirk walks out of the store. 

He stops just outside of the door and waits. And waits. And when met with the onset of absolutely nothing, he turns around and looks in through the window. He looks at the woman behind the counter. She seems to be caught in a very heated one way argument with a computer screen. The person who he thought was working stops by her, says something, laughs and then heads towards the door picking up their phone. Good! They’ll definitely notice. They make their way out, look back at the 'cameras, shop lifters will be persecuted' sign in the window, and laugh, coughing out a “Hey boss, camera’s are down again and Melinda is losing her shit.”

Dirk stares at the shop tender, mouth caught open in his devastation. They eventually notice and stare back, then say, “Hold on. Hey asshole got a problem?”

Dirk keeps staring, then looks to the Creature draped over his shoulder, then looks back to the terrible employee and shakes his head in disbelief. He considers telling them that he had just, very obviously, stolen the incredibly loud item in his possession from their shop. That he had done so right in front of their very eyes! But he thinks better of it. Dirk still has some sense of self preservation. He’s afraid of being brought into police custody too many times, particularly now that he’s back in the U.S., and while generally no one can actually prove he’s done anything wrong, he assumes the CIA will only cover him for so many offenses. Moreover, if he were to end up in jail, something horrific would probably just happen to some clueless innocent who doesn't deserve incarceration so that Dirk would be in their orbit, or, even less agreeably, someone that Dirk would need to be aware of, someone who very much _does_ deserve to be incarcerated, would wind up there instead. Neither option is too appealing.

He turns, brows pulling together, and whispers to the sky, “You’re just fucking with me now aren’t you?” As soon as the words leave his lips, something falls out of the Monstrosity’s pocket. Dirk’s eyes follow its motion as it flutters to the ground: A drop off laundry ticket. Dirk tips his head back and bemoans his good fortune. Well, there is his answer.


	2. Chapter 2

According to the ticket, the laundromat is  two blocks south. _Ugh. Of course it's to the left,_ Dirk thinks. He walks the inconsiderable distance down sixth avenue with leadened feet. The shop is tucked away, just off of the corner. A place so nondescript and flush to the walls around it, that the tiny cleaner would be impossible to _not_ miss if one weren’t looking for it. Dirk opens the door to a little chime and is almost immediately greeted by the counter. He doesn’t know how far back the room extends, but if the front is anything to go by, he doesn’t have an inkling as to how they manage to run an entire laundry out of the space. Dirk shuffles the singular step up to the counter and, resigned, hands the woman the ticket.  

“Picking up.” He mumbles.

Lo and behold, what a surprise... The ticket provides Dirk with a fresh undershirt, a button down, a very tasteful jumper, and a pair dress pants to accompany his new Eyesore. He puzzles over how the items could have possibly had the same owner as he makes his way back up the avenue. 

Pedestrians filter in streams around Dirk. They form little rivulets in and out of glass doors and between beams of scaffolding. Dirk follows one particularly large ebb and flow through one particularly large set of glass doors into a space he thinks must have some kind of public restroom he can change in. He takes in the new surroundings and thinks that this must be a sort of mid-speed food establishment; between the easily replicable furnishings, distinct color-slash-pattern themes, and hordes of laptop wielding 20 and 30-somethings, there’s not much else it could be. 

Dirk looks at the menu and feels the last bits of his endurance drain from him. He is so thoroughly run down, that he almost walks right back out. This was not an establishment but an insult, a veritable all-American capitalist nightmare that had absolutely no right to call itself a tea shop. But, he still needed to change his clothes and to not think over his plans going forward. Thinking had gotten him hardly anywhere, and where it had gotten him had been hardly any good. Case in point.

Dirk sees a portion of the wall open up as someone leaves what appears to be a large single stall. Well, at least the place has that going for it. He ducks in before someone else has the chance to. The room is filled with dark greys and stench but it would have to do. 

Dirk pulls the slightly crunchy, yet somehow still sticky, sprite-ware over his head and tries his best to avoid it touching his hair. His task is met with mixed success and quite a bit of wriggling. Fortunately, and he can’t bring himself to be too upset, his newly acquired goods fit as if they had been tailored to body and mind alike. Even so, they can’t take the frightful edge off of Dirk’s purloined outerwear. He hangs the hellish thing over a handicap rail then returns to the sink to run hot water over his had-beens. He wrings them out once they’re sufficiently sprite-less and drapes them over a jut in the wall. He’s sure that once they’re dry they’ll end up going to the someplace or someone they’re meant to. 

Dirk shakes the bit of water left on his hands over the sink and forgets to avoid looking in the mirror. He sighs; it’s hard to avoid existentialism while looking yourself in your far-older-than-you-feel-you-should-look face. Particularly, whilst engaging in a futile rebellion against your own cosmic helotry. He scrubs a hand over his cheek and thinks about when it was softer and notices the hairline wrinkles under and around his eyes. _When had those happened?_ He looks abruptly from what the world sees of him to the safety of what he sees of himself—his hands, currently clutching the single stall’s sink. He releases it slowly.

—*—

Someone seeing Dirk leave the large single stall might have mistaken him for being late to some sort of meeting, dressed nicely and walking with what looks like an incredibly speedy sense of purpose. Were Dirk to see himself leaving that large dark single stall, he would recognize that he is, in fact, engaged in a foot race with his crippling associates Panic and Meltdown. Maybe if he just walks fast enough he can out pace them…  

So Dirk walks. He walks and follows the big grim city’s flow and walks. And then he stops. On impulse, Dirk shifts himself over to the curb and throws out an arm. Well, this certainly wasn’t planned but if it's what he’s doing, it will, undoubtedly, be interesting. When Dirk gets involved with people in transport, they tend to accidentally take him where he needs to go, regardless of his, or their, intentions. Sure enough, a cab all too quickly meets him. He feels he must be the envy of New York… 

The driver greets him, kurt but kind, and asks him where he’s headed. Dirk mulls it over. He knows where he's suppo-- _wanted_. He knows where he’s _wanted_ , vaguely. 

“If you start driving could I possibly just let you know as I… know? I’m not from here… Clearly.” He pauses to point at his mouth, as if to emphasize the difference in the way that it makes sounds. “But I’m pretty sure I know how to get to where I’m headed? But I don’t know the address exactly…” Sure, The Universe will get him a cab but god forbid it help him with the following interaction. Typical. 

“Fine. As long as you can pay.” The driver says after a few beats. 

“Yes, absolutely. Thank you!” Dirk says brightly, knowing full well that he absolutely cannot pay. Oh well, he’s made it through worse. Though, knowing his luck, he’ll probably be abducted in the middle of the drive… His thoughts drift to the myriad of transcendental situations that could inadvertently get him out of having to pay his cab fare. The cab takes its time getting him almost no where. 

Left ambles through Dirk’s thoughts as the cab fails to make any headway. Once, again, and then one more time for good measure. Not liking being ignored, it flits around with a little more insistence. Then a near physical insistence. _Here we go,_ Dirk thinks. 

And then, the onslaught.

Left rattles between his ears and down his spine like a freight train. Dirk squeezes his eyes shut and curls into the seat as if he can physically lessen the brute force of his own desire to go left, and takes a deep breath. "I need you to turn right, right now!"

While the abruptness of the initial request sends it sailing over the driver’s head,the subsequently urgent declarations of “Turn right! Right! Right right right!” get the job done.  

With a bit of a hitch. 

The cab turns right, yes, but the back right tire tries it’s hand at being a pedestrian, much to the rest of the car’s chagrin, and spends some _real_ quality time with the curb. The car, in turn, decides to turn-in a bit early and finds it's new home on the south-west corner of 6th avenue and 31st street with a loud CLUNK and series of metallic crunches. Horror settles over the driver’s features, and through an intense eye contact via the rearview mirror, contagiously settles over Dirk’s as well. He knows that look and he knows the impending hail storm that follows it. 

So Dirk does what any sensible person in his position would do: Run. 

In a scramble of limbs and graceless glances behind himself, Dirk sees the driver. Had this been a cartoon, the man would have had steam pouring out of his ears to a loud drawn teakettle whistle. _Noted, running was probably_ _not_ _the best course of action_ , Dirk thinks, but he's hardly in a position to provide the man with adequate fiscal recompense!  

So he keeps running. He runs down the street and skids around the corner, the light happening to turn the moment his foot lands on the crosswalk. _Damn. Well played._ He makes it two more blocks before his pride, aching lungs, and more than a few of the city’s residents tell him he's run enough.

So Dirk walks, determination steadily fading. He doesn’t know where he’s walking to — the opposite direction, he’s deemed it. He doesn’t count the blocks, allowing his feet to move without thought. His eyes take in the shapes and sounds of this city and its vast differences from the one he lives in. He sees that the avenue numbers are going up but hasn’t quite gotten the hang of these streets. 

He presses ever forward until he’s met with the option to go up; There’s a caged staircase in the middle of the sidewalk. Curiosity crawls up his spine and gets the best of him.Back and forth he goes, up the winding set of stairs to… somewhere. He watches his feet take him to each new step.

He emerges from the caged stairs and, _Oh,_ _isn’t somewhere something?_ Somewhere hits Dirk’s nose first, and being pleasantly received as it is, his eyes jerk up so as not to be left out. Not one of Dirk’s senses is disappointed. He’s found a haven in this city of grime and good starch and nasty _nasty_ people.  

The narrowish path in front of him is lined on both sides with lush greenery, the life of which stands out agains the greys and jagged angles of the world below.  

Dirk lets himself be dragged away from the staircase. He doesn’t fight it, he opts instead to let his fingers brush across plants. He lets himself be moved—down and down the surprisingly quiet path he goes—and eventually lets himself be pulled to a bench. He doesn't even know if it's actually a holistic thing or if he just wants to sit. _Is there even a difference at this point? Has there ever been?_ He thinks there must have been sometime… Or maybe he was just unaware in that way that children are: contextless save for the experiences a limited number of years existing can provide… 

His eyes catch on far off shape in the river, he watches the way the light dances on the water, the way the body of it stretches out to the horizon like an ocean. It almost seems like it exists on a different plane than him simply because of its distance… His head feels stuffy and there’s pressure behind his eyes that makes him feel like he's watching a movie instead of living a life; The Many Misfortunes of Svlad Cjelli, The Puppet That Thought It Was A Person… His attention draws back to the distant thing as he scolds himself: _You exist and occupy the same space as other people which means you absolutely can be more than just a pawn of The Universe._ He wonders if people who didn’t grow up in secret government facilities have to have conversations like this with themselves. 

He tucks his head down on the second bench of the day. Everything is very loud here and he doesn't have anything left to deal with it with. 

And, that's when, with a grunt, someone un-surreptitiously stumbles. The parallel to earlier is uncanny. Dirk looks up and stares at the man’s drink in wide-eyed horror, he can’t deal with that happening twice in one day, let alone twice in so many hours. Thankfully, though, the man saves himself but only to have someone passer-by step on his carelessly laid out shoe lace. He is not so lucky this time and goes down with neither hope nor prayer, scattering his everythings everywhere. Thankfully, his drink is somehow unscathed. 


	3. Chapter 3

Dirk, being the kind and gentle soul he is—he wouldn’t have picked a derivative of the adjective for a surname otherwise—rushes to the man’s aid. He realizes, a full stack of regathered papers too late, that this whole interaction will most likely be trap. But this is another person who probably needs him… probably… in this god forsaken city where no one actually acknowledges that there are other people!

As Dirk shuffles the papers, and his person, in the general direction of their scattered source, he finds himself in contact with a wide dark hand. He trails it up and notices it belongs to an equally dark and, very unfortunately, toned arm. He then has the quite distinct misfortune of taking in lips, hair, and eyes and  _hmm, no_. He thinks.  _This is undoubtedly a trap_.

Dirk has his vague and vast connection with the inter-workings of The Universe, sure. He has an insight that very few people ever would have the chance to experience, definitely. And yet, everyone else seems to have some universally understood inter-workings of one another's communicative duties and as Dirk finds himself face to face with a gut-churningly handsome man, he wishes, not for the first time, that he could trade.

Dirk blinks, and then blinks a few more times for good measure. He heaves a quick breath in and then opens his mouth to say…  _To say what?_ Since he didn’t actually have anything in mind when he started, he’s left gaping like a distinctly long and dry fish. He watches the lips on the handsome face turn up a bit at one corner and is swept away by the unfairness of it all.

Dirk keeps watching the lips. He watches them move and then he registers, seconds later, that they moved because they had said something. He scrambles to figure out what it was and to his relief is able to recall a “Thank you.”

Dirk, unfortunately, only manages to sputter a few times, before realizing that he’s still clutching onto the man’s papers as if they were the sole thing anchoring him to the face of the earth during this encounter. He releases the papers to their rightful owner with a few pats on the back of the man’s hand.

Remembering that he still needs to say something, Dirk digs into the depths of his person and finds that he does, in fact, know how words work. He actually contains quite a bit of knowledge on how they are able to link together to form sentences and  _even_ express emotional concepts! And with this revelation, he finally responds to the man’s thanks with a simple and very efficient “uh, yes.”

Even The Universe seems to be uncomfortable with the encounter, though, and Dirk suddenly regains proper usage of his faculties. He looks at the unreasonably-lovely man and sputters out, “I… I… Wait! I’m so sorry. That was… very rude and really barely helpful.” He even manages to introduce himself.

“I’m… Dirk.” He says, and holds out his hand. And suddenly… the world clicks.

The Man introduces himself as Cornell and he speaks in that nonchalant, offhand manner that people use when they’re versed in conversation. Dirk admires the trait covetously. They stumble through regathering the scattered wares to the sweet soundtrack of distant blaring car horns and words easily rolling off Cornell’s tongue about the shambled state of his day and the series of increasingly ridiculous events that lead him here. 

“Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.” He chuckles. 

Dirk thinks to The Universe that that insultingly blatant clarification is unneeded and sighs, one of the silent long suffering variety, adding to the collection of the many and varied sighs he’d produced over the past fifteen minutes. This is a very  _very_  unfair way to force his hand. As soon as he thinks the last word they, coincidentally, brush hands. Dirk’s head fills with fantasy before he even has a chance to take pause. Racy images of shared mundanities flood his thoughts: Getting out of a shared bed to perform shared daily morning routines, home cooked breakfasts for two, stepping out of their shared home to go to their possibly also shared job.

He could barely take it. 

But before the line of thought has the chance to lead Dirk’s heart into a row with early onset cardiac arrest, he’s knocked back to reality by a pair of feet. Although they have the common decency to try to avoid stepping on him, the body they belong to offers no aid. Dirk can’t bring himself to mind too much. 

Through a series of soft incidental brushes and wildly amassing life plans, Dirk finishes helping Cornell regather his belongings. And then he’s left with no buffer between him and what he knows he should do. The Universe always seems to get what it wants in the end. Dirk reaches into his sock, one of his only remaining original pieces of clothing, then extends his hand. It trembles a little with the weight of the notion clasped between his fingers.

“Here.” Dirk says. “This is my card. Odds are if things continue on the same path they’ve been on, you’ll probably need my services by the end of the week, if not by the end of the day.” He makes the distinctly difficult effort of looking the man in his very lovely face. Finding himself unable to settle on Cornell’s eyes, Dirk’s gaze lands on his mouth, he then thinks better and shifts his sights to Cornell’s perfect but considerably less enticing nose.

Dirk then quickly nods, about-faces, and rushes away and into an encroaching group of tourists.  _Up yours Universe_ , he thinks as his feet carry him ever further away, he still has a bone pick; Dirk feels a stir of pride in his chest as he thinks to himself that he’s starting to get the hang of New York culture. 

—*—  

With varying levels of difficulty Dirk ignores every possible urge on his way back to the little motel he’s spent the past few nights in. At one point he’s practically bowled over by the desire to go left again, though this time it's a different left from earlier. He has to fight tooth and nail for that one. He  _really_ wants to go left. God. What could  _possibly_  be over there? 

He soldiers on. Whatever is over there is currently unimportant.

To ensure his latitude, he ignores everything else he wants as well. All of his hungers go unanswered: His legs begging him to sit, his curiosity wanting him to play tourist, every  _oh that actually looks like a decent tea shop_ , and  _where could that possibly go?_  is pushed aside. 

In an act of spite, Dirk turns right twice, which, as always, winds up being a grievous mistake. The first right is fairly harmless, putting him at a crosswalk feud between an incensed driver and a woman who had the audacity to cross in front of him, in the crosswalk, at the pedestrian signal. The second is less harmless. It lands him in front of a unique armed robbery where the robber is armed with, well, arms. Also one leg and a torso. Dirk has to scurry through the frantic rush of people only to just barely miss being bowled over by a wayward plastic foot. In missing Dirk, though, the foot, and leg it’s attached to, does not miss the person behind him, booting them into the position of unintended jaywalker. As the unlucky pedestrian falls, a pair of Canadian plates pulls through the green light. Trying to avoid the worst, the car swerves out of the way of what most New York drivers would have made into an inconvenient speed bump, and into the back of a parked cab.

Dirk reels out of his immobilized state. That’s two cabs he’d de-serviced just by being present; a new and unwanted personal record. Dirk keeps his head down and lets his body move on its own. He hears the starting blank fire as leg two of the race against Panic and Meltdown begins.

Memories of Blackwing scratch at the back of his thoughts with a slow drawl as he walks.

“The danger in Project Icarus is that he appears to be benign, if somewhat socially stunted.” The voice drapes itself around the last words, savoring their bite. “We believe he is unaware of the risk he poses to others. Engage with caution. Be aware most actions and requests preempt chaos. Be aware that entertaining any of Project Icarus’ requests can result in grievous bodily harm or death.” The words ring in his ears and he almost misses the entrance to the run down little hovel he’s been calling home.

Once inside, safely tucked away from the unsuspecting public, he allows himself to slow, striping off his shoes, taking ample time to put on clothes that were originally and still are his, and tossing the “acquired” Monstrosity over the back of a little writing desk decorating the corner. The combined weights of a day of running and an intrusive cosmically deigned purpose drop Svlad face first onto the bed. He groans and fails  _spectacularly_ at not thinking about The Man.

Gentle things flood his mind. Soft and boring things. Predictability. Stability. His chest aches and stomach twists with the years of unacknowledged desire and unmet need. When the sun sets and the city is cast into its bright loud night, when it’s dark and he’s curled in on himself and feeling much much smaller than twenty four, Svlad dares to think about what it would be like to be romanced: To have his hair stroked while making tea or what the press of another’s body would feel like while folding laundry. How long and tightly do you have to be held to notice the rise and fall of another’s breathing? How close do you have to be to feel their heartbeat? Dirk forces his body to unfurl, allows himself to smile. What would dancing with another man be like? Who would lead? What would the breath of his partner feel like grazing his cheek… the back of his neck? His toes curl as he wonders and he lets the thought of being cradled in dark and unfortunately-lovely arms lull him to sleep.

—*—

At 2:30 AM Dirk Gently receives a call. He answers, bolt upright and perfunctorily awake. The voice on the other line is panicked. Dirk nods a few times to acknowledge that he’s following its story, regardless of how wild it might appear, before realizing that he’s on a phone and that nodding won’t do much good. He cuts the voice off, thinking that the rising panic he's hearing is probably due to a lack of verbal acknowledgement that the story is being listened to and followed. 

“Yes, that’s all quite terrible, especially for this hour of the morning. Would you give me an address? I’ll be right there.” Dirk says in a manner more suited to addressing the weather than an entire upheaval of someone’s belief of what is real and possible.

“…Meet me at The Donut Pub? It’s on 14th and 7th.” The quite literal man of Dirk’s dreams says slowly.

“Okay, great. My advice for the time being would be to avoid any fatal or near-fatal interactions alike and I’ll see you soon!” Dirk clicks the phone shut and elates. He bites his lip, bouncing a bit, and waves his arms in a fashion that would elicit envy from any air maraca-ist.

As he dresses for the cool New York City night, Dirk feels his heart pick up. He wonders what had been left, wonders if he’ll need the barely definable coat he stole, he wonders why  _those_ clothes, he wonders if it was because an incredibly handsome man needed to look at him with thoughts bordering on what Dirk’s own had been. Maybe…

And he’s off.

The pieces of it spin in him, blistering him with fascination and a thin, persistent, thread of hope. He had spent the whole day feeling fractured and now he feels right. The thought of him not having any true agency in his life stings, but maybe there’s no point in fighting The Universe... The thought sits sourly in his stomach but is consciously and decisively smothered as Dirk notices that the inside of his shop-lifted Disaster has pockets. It has pockets and one pocket has a small, wallet-style, clear plastic face. Beneath the clear plastic is a pink-shag headed,  _very_  gold lever key. 

Dirk sucks in a breath and heads down to the subway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, reorganized this! It was super sprawling as one piece and I think works better as chapters. Thanks for reading!


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